The Andean Conjunto, Bolivian Sikureada and the Folkloric Musical Representation Continuum

Abstract

The Andean conjunto and Bolivian sikureada are two vastly different folkloric representations of the Southern Andean tropa (indigenous wind consort). This article examines the extent to which these folkloric portrayals sonically resemble and have stylistically influenced rural indigenous community music-making in the Southern Andes. I argue that these case studies provide evidence that a folkloric musical representation's sonic resemblance to the rural genre or style it is said to be chiefly derived from can be conceptualized along a continuum and that this approach elucidates the feasibility of musical borrowings from a folkloric enactment back to its so-called root form. The final section compares the Andean conjunto and Bolivian sikureada to the Cuban ‘international’ rumba and ‘classic era’ son, respectively, to position my findings within a wider comparative perspective and to illustrate that the categories of ‘folkloric’ and ‘popular’ music frequently obfuscate similar stylistic modification and resignification processes.

Keywords:

• Folklorization
• Latin American Popular Music
• Mestizo–Indigenous Interactions
• Andean Music
• Panpipe Ensembles
• Bolivia

Acknowledgements

This article could not have been written without the cooperation of the many Bolivian, Argentine and French musicians who took the time to talk to me. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and co-editor Trevor Wiggins for their insightful comments, which helped me improve the manuscript. My most heartfelt thanks, as always, are reserved for Thalia.

Notes

¹Southern Andean rural indigenous musicians often use the rather generic term ‘sikureada’ (music played with sikus) to refer to local siku genres. My discussion of the sikureada, however, focuses on the mestizo tradition bearing this name.

²In Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation, Thomas Turino lays out the characteristics of presentational musical practices which he contrasts with participatory music-making: ‘Broadly defined, participatory performance is a special type of artistic practice in which there are no artist-audience distinctions, only participants and potential participants performing different roles, and the primary goal is to involve the maximum number of people in some performance role. Presentational performance, in contrast, refers to situations where one group of people, the artists, prepare and provide music for another group, the audience, who do not participate in making the music or dancing’ (Turino 2008: 26).

³Despite their slightly different spellings and pronunciations, the Peruvian huayno and Bolivian huayño are essentially the same genre. I use the first spelling to refer to Peruvian regional variants and for generalisations about the genre. I switch to the other spelling when discussing Bolivian musicians and traditions.

⁴This rural panpipe tropa performance of ‘Yaku Kantu’ appears on the UNESCO field recording Bolivia, Panpipes: Syrinx de Bolivie (AUVIDIS D 8009; see Bolivia 1987).

⁵ Los Jairas: De Colección (CD-13834) contains the group's version of ‘Agüita de Phutina’ (Los Jairas 1993). Los Jairas performs it with the urban mestizo siku tropa Los Choclos.

⁶ Savia Andina: Classics (CD SUK 12) includes the ‘Agüita de Phutina’ track analysed in this article (Savia Andina 1993). For a partial transcription, see Céspedes (1984: 238–40).

⁷The Peruvian scissors dance of Ayacucho and neighbouring Central Andean departamentos (e.g., Apurímac, Huancavelica), for example, is such a presentational indigenous tradition that it is performed in staged folkloric contexts without major stylistic alterations to the genres (see Arce Sotelo 2006).

⁸However, Merriam (1955: 32) briefly mentions ‘Bantu Masses,’ a post-Vatican II tradition which includes folkloric representations of traditional African genres.

⁹To hear a rural indigenous siku tropa from the Ayopaya town of Chuñawi Chico (departamento of Cochabamba, Bolivia) perform the sikureada, refer to the track ‘Sikus: Wayno’ recorded on Day of the Indian that appears on Bolivien: Musik im Andenhochland (Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin MC14; see Bolivien 1982). In the departamento of Sucre, the sikureada is a mestizo tradition in the province of Zudañez, which neighbours Cochabamba and Northern Potosi (Goyena 1987: 70, 72, 83–6, 91).

¹⁰The huayno's rhythmic ostinato similarly makes the genre compatible with Colombian cumbia, a factor in the emergence of chicha music (Romero 2002).

¹¹The Peruvian sikumoreno, on the other hand, seems to have largely retained its identification as a regional mestizo identity emblem in Puno (see Acevedo 2003: 133–9; Valencia 1983: 65–87). The tradition has thus experienced less dramatic shifts in its ethnic meaning than has the Bolivian sikureada (Rios 2010: 311).

¹²Another important reason why many Southern Andean ayllus have adopted the brass band is because of its ability to perform at high volume in outdoor settings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fernando Rios

Fernando Rios is Visiting Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research, which is based on fieldwork conducted in Bolivia, Argentina and France, focuses on urban folklorizations of rural Andean musical styles in relation to Bolivian nation-building projects and international popular music trends. His recent work includes ‘Bolero Trios, Mestizo Panpipe Ensembles and Bolivia's 1952 Revolution: Urban La Paz Musicians and the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement’ in Ethnomusicology (2010) and ‘La Flûte Indienne: The Early History of Andean-Folkloric Music in France and its Impact on Nueva Canción’ in Latin American Music Review (2008)